BARNSTABLE — The Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates got the last word in a dust-up over a $74,000 gap between its budget and a spending plan proposed by county commissioners.

During a special meeting on Friday the assembly voted 73.78 percent to 23.49 percent to override a vote taken two days earlier by the three commissioners that would have restored the funding, which the assembly had previously voted to eliminate. The 15-member assembly is the legislative branch of Cape Cod's regional government, and each member controls a portion of the vote based on his or her town's population.

The delegate from Orleans, who controls 2.73 percent of the vote, was not present at the meeting.

The three commissioners, who act as the county's executive branch, had originally proposed a $25.8 million budget for the coming year. The budget funds a wide range of regional services, including the county dredge, the Cape Cod Water Protection Collaborative, and the county's fire and rescue training academy.

On May 7, a slim majority of assembly delegates rejected that budget outright, arguing that they didn't have enough information about the cost of certain programs. A move to reconsider the vote resulted in the assembly passing an amended version on May 21 that eliminated the $74,000 from spending on information technology and from an account for Cape Cod Commission work the county helps fund.

The amount cut from the budget is equal to a 2.5 percent increase in revenue the county is allowed to collect from the towns each year.

The commissioners on Wednesday voted unanimously to disapprove the amended budget, sending it back to the assembly, which can override the executive board with a two-thirds majority vote. The commissioners claimed that eliminating the allowed 2.5 percent increase would have a compounding effect on the county's ability to raise money in the future.

"I just doubt that most of your towns didn't take the 2.5 percent, not because they're wasteful and spendthrift but because this is the price of having services," said Falmouth delegate Julia Taylor, who voted against overriding the commissioners' budget.

Other delegates, however, didn't buy those arguments.

The budget vote wasn't about whether or not county government is relevant, Truro delegate Deborah McCutcheon said.

Instead, she said, it was about financial information that delegates asked for but never received, she said.